More Language Spamming

[alixtii]

Okay, I've come across this sentence at a description of the SFWA DMCA wank at phywriter.com by RGR, a magazine which was served with a DMCA notice for material they themselves owned:

This behavior is irritating at least and draconian at best, and we wonder if the SFWA doesn’t have better things to do.

I find this sentence fascinating. Usually the construction "A at B and X at Y" is to use to describe a spectrum of possibilities: at point B, on one end of the spectrum, situation A is the case, while situation X is the case at point Y on the other side. Usually, A and X share something in common (they're usually both negative) to make the point that all points along the spectrum share that thing in common.

But in RGR's example, "at best" and "at least" mean more or less the same thing, lying at the same side of the spectrum, and RGR doesn't seem to particularly feel the need to explain what, exactly, the worst-case scenario would be.